I've said this in a couple other threads, but I don't believe that gun control is going to get any traction in Congress. Some Democrats will push for it, some other Republicans will table it, some pro-gun control folks like myself will cry foul, and yet another Congress will pass without any gun control measures seeing the light of day.

But here's one thing that maybe we can start doing: better educate ourselves on gun violence, so we can stop stabbing in the dark as to what we can better do to mitigate it.

The problem is that for a couple decades now, the government has not been able to produce any information on gun violence because the NRA has been threatening war if Congress failed to choke off all funding for gun-related research.

The CDC and NIH used to conduct research for decades, but around the time of the late 90s, the NRA became so powerful it was able to prevent these agencies from granting funds to researchers on those topics. McClatchy DC:

Quote:

The CDC and NIH award billions in grants. They fund research into cancer, brain injury, tobacco use, obesity, AIDS, abortion, hearing loss, allergies, infectious diseases, back pain and virtually everything else related to human health. But gun violence is the one area that carries that specific language. The effect has been to limit federal funding into research that could be used to shape policy.

This is irresponsible. We pass hundreds of gun-related laws across the country every few years. Like all laws, we should be able to research the impact of the laws we pass, so we can make decisions based on more than pure ideology.

Anyway, there's a ton of stories on this, but here's a really good one from last year in the Times.

In the wake of the shootings in Tucson, the familiar questions inevitably resurfaced: Are communities where more people carry guns safer or less safe? Does the availability of high-capacity magazines increase deaths? Do more rigorous background checks make a difference?

The reality is that even these and other basic questions cannot be fully answered, because not enough research has been done. And there is a reason for that. Scientists in the field and former officials with the government agency that used to finance the great bulk of this research say the influence of the National Rife Association has all but choked off money for such work.

“We’ve been stopped from answering the basic questions,” said Mark Rosenberg, former director of the National Center for Injury Control and Prevention, part of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was for about a decade the leading source of financing for firearms research.

Chris Cox, the N.R.A.’s chief lobbyist, said his group had not tried to squelch genuine scientific inquiries, just politically slanted ones.

“Our concern is not with legitimate medical science,” Mr. Cox said. “Our concern is they were promoting the idea that gun ownership was a disease that needed to be eradicated.”

The amount of money available today for studying the impact of firearms is a fraction of what it was in the mid-1990s, and the number of scientists toiling in the field has dwindled to just a handful as a result, researchers say.

The dearth of money can be traced in large measure to a clash between public health scientists and the N.R.A. in the mid-1990s. At the time, Dr. Rosenberg and others at the C.D.C. were becoming increasingly assertive about the importance of studying gun-related injuries and deaths as a public health phenomenon, financing studies that found, for example, having a gun in the house, rather than conferring protection, significantly increased the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance.

Alarmed, the N.R.A. and its allies on Capitol Hill fought back. The injury center was guilty of “putting out papers that were really political opinion masquerading as medical science,” said Mr. Cox, who also worked on this issue for the N.R.A. more than a decade ago.

Initially, pro-gun lawmakers sought to eliminate the injury center completely, arguing that its work was “redundant” and reflected a political agenda. When that failed, they turned to the appropriations process. In 1996, Representative Jay Dickey, Republican of Arkansas, succeeded in pushing through an amendment that stripped $2.6 million from the disease control centers’ budget, the very amount it had spent on firearms-related research the year before.

“It’s really simple with me,” Mr. Dickey, 71 and now retired, said in a telephone interview. “We have the right to bear arms because of the threat of government taking over the freedoms that we have.”

The Senate later restored the money but designated it for research on traumatic brain injury. Language was also inserted into the centers’ appropriations bill that remains in place today: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”

The prohibition is striking, firearms researchers say, because there are already regulations that bar the use of C.D.C. money for lobbying for or against legislation. No other field of inquiry is singled out in this way.

In the end, researchers said, even though it is murky what exactly is allowed under this provision and what is not, the upshot is clear inside the centers: the agency should tread in this area only at its own peril.

“They had a near-death experience,” said Dr. Arthur Kellermann, whose study on the risks versus the benefits of having guns in the home became a focal point of attack by the N.R.A.

In the years since, the C.D.C. has been exceedingly wary of financing research focused on firearms. In its annual requests for proposals, for example, firearms research has been notably absent. Gail Hayes, spokeswoman for the centers, confirmed that since 1996, while the agency has issued requests for proposals that include the study of violence, which may include gun violence, it had not sent out any specifically on firearms.

“For policy to be effective, it needs to be based on evidence,” said Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, who had his C.D.C. financing cut in 1996. “The National Rifle Association and its allies in Congress have largely succeeded in choking off the development of evidence upon which that policy could be based.”

Private foundations initially stepped into the breach, but their attention tends to wax and wane, researchers said. They are also much more interested in work that leads to immediate results and less willing to finance basic epidemiological research that scientists say is necessary to establishing a foundation of knowledge about the connection between guns and violence, or the lack thereof.

The National Institute of Justice, part of the Justice Department, also used to finance firearms research, researchers said, but that money has also petered out in recent years. (Institute officials said they hoped to reinvigorate financing in this area.)

Stephen Teret, founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, estimated that the amount of money available for firearms research was a quarter of what it used to be. With so much uncertainty about financing, Mr. Teret said, the circle of academics who study the phenomenon has fallen off significantly.

After the centers’ clash with the N.R.A., Mr. Teret said he was asked by C.D.C. officials to “curtail some things I was saying about guns and gun policy.”

Mr. Teret objected, saying his public comments about gun policy did not come while he was on the “C.D.C. meter.” After he threatened to file a lawsuit against the agency, Mr. Teret said, the officials backed down and gave him “a little bit more leeway.”

C.D.C. financing for research on gun violence has not stopped completely, but it is now mostly limited to work in which firearms are only a component.

The centers also ask researchers it finances to give it a heads-up anytime they are publishing studies that have anything to do with firearms. The agency, in turn, relays this information to the N.R.A. as a courtesy, said Thomas Skinner, a spokesman for the centers.

Invariably, researchers said, whenever their work touches upon firearms, the C.D.C. becomes squeamish. In the end, they said, it is often simply easier to avoid the topic if they want to continue to be in the agency’s good graces.

Dr. Stephen Hargarten, professor and chairman of emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, used to direct a research center, financed by the C.D.C., that focused on gun violence, but he said he had now shifted his attention to other issues.

Because I'd have all sorts of trouble understanding the answer "true."

The answer is, obviously: false.

No thatís actually true. Youíve yet to show even the most basic of understanding of guns, their function or what makes one different from another. Itís become obvious to everyone following along that all you know about guns is what has been handed to you by some other party line parrot.
Once you can answer this question, Iíll consider putting more thought into my posts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radar Chief

Name for me exactly what functional difference there is between an assault rifle and any other semi-automatic rifle of the same caliber that makes them "so much more dangerous".

Because I'd have all sorts of trouble understanding the answer "true."

The answer is, obviously: false.

That's where the entire notion of gun control comes in. If different firearms have different capacities for killing people, then it is perfectly sensible to make sure some guns are more difficult to acquire than others, and still others are altogether banned.

The question is, and always will be in gun control: where do you draw the line.

The massive variety of firearms makes that a very hard line to draw in a ban of any kind, and you can't really draw a line where there aren't going to be a lot of similarities between what is subject to it and what isn't. But that doesn't mean a line shouldn't be drawn.

I would put it on a scale: what is the weapon's capability for killing people, versus the practical uses for it in civilian life.And I believe that should leave semiautos on the wrong side of a gun ban.

What would the "practical uses" be? I mean what is a "practical use" in your mind? And how does someone with your limited knowledge of firearms determine what is "practical" and what isn't?

So you seriously believe that all guns have the same capability to create the same amount of death as automatic weapons?

You seriously believe that.

Actually a semi-automatic only weapon of equal magazine capacity is likely to create MORE death than a fully automatic only weapon of same magazine capacity.

Contrary to popular belief the military use of fully automatic weapons isn't to cause mass casualties. It's to deny the enemy the ability to move through an area. That's why they call it 'suppressive fire' it's designed to suppress the movement of the enemy.

Consider an M16 it has a fire rate of ~900 RPM and a magazine size of 30 rounds. If you hold the trigger down you dump the entire magazine in 2 seconds. Not only is the magazine exhausted quickly but firing full auto causes the muzzle to rise up and to the left generally leading to very inaccurate fire.

The US Army's experience with full auto in Vietnam actually caused them to release the M16A2 which replaced full auto fire with a 3 round burst fire.

Quote:

The action was also modified, replacing the fully automatic setting with a three-round burst setting. When using a fully automatic weapon, poorly trained troops often hold down the trigger and "spray" when under fire.

Full auto has tactical uses but killing isn't one of them. A trained shooter with a semi-auto weapon taking aimed shots will be far more lethal than one that is spraying and praying with inaccurate full-auto fire.

__________________
"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t*rd by the clean end"

__________________
"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t*rd by the clean end"

So you seriously believe that all guns have the same capability to create the same amount of death as automatic weapons?

You seriously believe that.

.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Direckshun

That's not the question, though.

The question: are all guns are equally capable of spreading the same amount of death?

__________________
"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t*rd by the clean end"

Fair point -- I was using the automatic weapon as an example of my larger question, I suppose.

Once again, the obvious answer is no, not all guns are capable of creating the same amount of death. Some can create more than others, and therefore are more deserving to be either banned or restricted.

Direkshun's being kind of a pain in the ass about it ("spreading more death"? Really?), but he's got a point. There are different levels of effectiveness of firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition, and a major part of the gun control debate is predicated on where to draw the line between which are regulated, controlled, or outright forbidden, and which are not. We already have much of that in place: fully automatic weapons require the class 3, while semi-autos do not. It's the same thing, it's just a matter of where to draw that line.

As for fully automatic weapons, CrazyPhuD, you have a point - sort of. Full-autos are used like that in the military, and inexperienced users would have a good chance of finding themselves suddenly out of ammo a lot. Imagine, though, if the Batman shooter guy had had one - with the darkness and chaos and closely-packed victims, he would have increased his casualty list by quite a bit. I think automatic weapons are regulated just fine the way they are - with the super-stringent restrictions that, by the way, are very effective in keeping them largely out of the hands of criminals.

1. The pistol grip changes the way a rifleman holds the weapon. Without it, the stock rests on the palm, appealing more to the sportsman or hunter who will line the sights up to his eyes. With it, the weapon is more easily held at the waist, a stance used more often by soldiers. Hence its status as an identifier of assault weapons.

2. Yes, let's face it - they're scarier looking. I'm sure there are many gun control advocates that would ban all of Grandpop's hunting rifles with the maple wood stock, if given the chance, but they can only get the largely apathetic general public to get excited about the sleek black ones.

1. The pistol grip changes the way a rifleman holds the weapon. Without it, the stock rests on the palm, appealing more to the sportsman or hunter who will line the sights up to his eyes. With it, the weapon is more easily held at the waist, a stance used more often by soldiers. Hence its status as an identifier of assault weapons.

2. Yes, let's face it - they're scarier looking. I'm sure there are many gun control advocates that would ban all of Grandpop's hunting rifles with the maple wood stock, if given the chance, but they can only get the largely apathetic general public to get excited about the sleek black ones.

Dude. No soldier in our modern military is being taught to shoot from the hip, you have no real accuracy that way. The only person I have ever seen use that possition is the Gunny and it was only for full auto.

The pistol grip is a matter of preference, some like it and some don't. I personally like it because it puts my wrist in less of a twist and I get a better feel for the trigger, since accuracy is all about sight picture and trigger pull.
But you're missing the point, a pistol grip doesn't change how a semi-automatic rifle functions.